Re: What price for grubbing mesquite?

Dr_Zinj, I did not know what those bushes were in their green state, so I asked the landowner what it was. He said Russian Thistle. It didn't mean anything to me so I looked it up on Wilki and sure enough it said that it was also called tumbleweed. Who knew?

Re: What price for grubbing mesquite?

Hey all,

Thank you for all your advice and assistance. I promised to share the results of my land clearing project with you when I got finished with the project.

The project was to grub and rake 34 acres of Mesquite and Russian Thistle. It took 28 days for me to complete the project, 13 days grubbing and 15 days raking. I spent 70 hours of skid time grubbing out the mesquites and thistle. The raking took 64 hrs. The total cost to the customer was $8056.00 or $237.00/acre.

I started the project on the 6th of May and completed the pasture on the 1st of July. The customer interspersed other projects such as dirt moving, moving some large landscape rocks, dressing tank dams and grubbing other pastures while I was clearing the pasture. I was careful to keep records of the time spent on the various projects. I am still working in other areas of the farm and will probably be there for another couple of weeks.

Things that I will do different on the next project? I will likely charge more. Based on pricing discussed in this thread and through other sources, rates for this type of land clearing seem to range from about $700/acre to about $2500/acre and up. Also, I didn’t account for the money it would cost me to travel to and from the worksite for 28 days. That turned out to be a significant unanticipated cost. I will need to figure out some fair way to recover those travel costs. I would like to find a midi (4-5 ton) excavator with a grubber that I could rent for the next project. I think it would speed up the grubbing. Then I could use the skid for raking.

Again, thanks for your insights. I hope this thread will be helpful to others down the road

That worked out to ~$60 per hour I believe (if I did the math right) so although you probably where 20-33% low of the hourly rate where I am, if you didn't have any major mechanical issues then you did OK I would think. If you where to do this again, would you have used the skid steer or have rented a full sized load with root rake?

Re: What price for grubbing mesquite?

One thing that would be useful to you to find at least what part of the customer base would be willing to 'pay' is to check with your local USDA/NRCS office to find out what reeimbursement rates are under the EQIP and other programs; this also drives what some ranchers would be willing to pay up for (generally they are not expecting 100% reeimbursement but who knows how some think). For reference, I have not heard of anyone where we are located paying anywhere near the $700-2500/acre that you mentioned. Prices closer to $100-200.